Socialists Alert European Ambassadors about Police State in Bulgaria

Sofia, November 23 (BTA) - In an open letter to all European ambassadors in the country, the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) alerts about police state, authoritarianism and limiting of the rights of different-minded people and the opposition, BSP leader Kornelia Ninova told journalists in Parliament on Friday. The open letter was prompted by the imposed police presence during her recent meetings in Yambol Region with stock-breeders, whose animals were culled in the summer over a suspected ovine rinderpest outbreak.

No one has requested police presence for these meetings, Ninova said. "I heard that this was imposed for my safety, which is absurd since there is no need to protect me," she commented.

The ruling GERB party reacted sharply and sarcastically to the opposition's open letter with a declaration of their own on Friday.

"For two months we have been witnessing the BSP's insolence and populism, instigation of the Bulgarian people to protest by sending out fake invitations," Spas Gurnevski MP of GERB said in the plenary chamber. "They [the BSP] talk about social policy, they wanted police patrols in every village," he went on. The presence of police patrols in the villages that Ninova visited shows that GERB are implementing their election programme, he added.

"Of course we would protect you, Mrs Ninova - we are protecting you like a soft-boiled egg. You are the only one who will finally eliminate very quickly this leech stuck to the body of the Bulgarian people called Bulgarian socialist mafia. That is why we will protect you. Several more months, and you will fulfill your task," Gurnevski commented.